I recently realized that I’ve been missing working with my animals at liberty. I had so much fun with Louie mule the winter I taught him how to bow and to fetch. I have not done much liberty work since. Now, working with Louie was easy and the quick success I had with teaching him to fetch had a lot more to do with his natural eagerness to play and to put his mouth on things then with my talent as a trainer. Working with Louie was like working with an over eager Lab puppy! He made things easy but I did learn a lot working with him.
My mare Marie thinks playing is stupid and only engages in liberty work to get a treat but with no real enjoyment of having to “jump through hoops” to get the treat. I’ve never really done any work with Luke at liberty or my boarders mule, Dolly. I think Dolly will be easy to work with, she is very friendly and likes to mess with things. She plays with anything she can get her lips on. I've renamed her "limber lips" as she is a wizard at working gate latches and snaps. She can even undo cable ties without breaking them!
Luke will be interesting to work with. I have noticed that Luke is very suspicious of anything that you do when he is at liberty and will usually not hang around. But, put a halter on him and he quiets down and seems very happy and secure. I don’t think he’s ever been worked with at liberty so does not know what to do when he has choices to make. Louie was the opposite, when at liberty, he was secure and happy. Once haltered or restrained in any way, that is when he would get worried.
Today I decided to see what Luke does with working at liberty. I figured I’d just start in a smaller area where he could not take off too far. He takes great delight in walking out into the barn aisle when I’m working out there. Not sure why he enjoys this so much but he does. So, today I let him come out in the aisle and closed the barn doors. I figured I’d start with the most simple thing, targeting. I had cut up carrots all ready for rewards. I recently purchased a hula hoop that has beads in it so makes noise when it moves. I got the hula hoop, he saw it and immediately turned away from me and decided to vacate the area, realized he had nowhere to go and stood in the corner blowing with bugged out eyes. I clucked to him to encourage him to turn around and when he did, I released pressure on him by backing up. He came towards me. I had to do a little bit of approach and retreat before he finally worked up the nerve to sniff and touch the hula hoop, but he eventually did. He got a big “good boy” and a treat. It took quite a few times of this before I could see him start to associate his touching the hula hoop with getting treats. But, he was soon quite relaxed and even let me put the hoop around his neck and spin it, letting it make noise. That’s all I did for today as a first session and I was pleased with how he did. It will be fun to see how he responds to this kind of training once he gets the hang of it. He does like to play. But, he so much more reserved then Louie, at least with people. He’s a very polite and gentle mule so will be nice to work with in that way. I just hope I can get him engaged and enjoying the work. I already can't wait for tomorrow as the mule, and even horses, surprise me in how they process a lesson from one session to the next.
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